Summer Apples

Farewell my perfect summer weather! The next 7 days are supposed to be well into the upper 90's with high humidity. *sigh* Oh how I loved every single minute of the perfect carefree weather this past week. Hopefully the delightful summertime goodness will be back soon! In preparation for the upcoming HHH (Hazy Hot and Humid) we started early this morning in the hopes of getting some work done before we all melted. First on our list was to pick all the summer apples. They are ripe and ready for picking and with the heatwave - we needed to get them all in before it was too late.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres used his handy dandy apple picker that was his grandpa's.  It is perfect for getting the apples way up in the top of the tree.  My daughter and I got all the apples we could reach, and believe it or not, our doodle doggies picked up and retrieved all the apples that fell to the ground and brought them to us so we could put them in the basket. Times like these, I am really glad that Mr. Yesteryear Acres and my son trained our doggies to have soft mouths for retrieving.  They didn't put a single mark on the apples and saved my back. After all the apples were picked my son and Mr. Yesteryear Acres headed out to the field. They had a bunch of bush hogging work to do along with removing some fallen trees from our last storm.  The boys definitely got the worst end of the deal today. It is so hot and muggy outside.  My daughter and I ended up peeling all the apples.  I worked on a big stockpot of homemade applesauce and my daughter made a gigantic casserole dish of apple crisp. The house smells SO good!!!! I can't wait for dessert. Hopefully tonight we will all have a bit of free time so we can sit, cool off and fill our bellies with yummy apple goodness!